Final Report on RREF 2001 - Department of Health

Part B: Development of Options for a Revised RREF
1.3 POPULATION LIVING IN THE COMMUNITY ONLY
As the RREF base population covers only the population with moderate, severe and profound
handicap living in the community, attention has to be given to the way in which the population
in aged residential care and disability supported accommodation is excluded. While this issue
was not an area of discussion in the consultations and submissions, the Review recognised the
need to revise the way this population is defined and excluded to take account of variations in
access to residential care for both the aged and for younger people with disabilities at the local
level.
Information on the population in non-private dwellings is collected in DACS through a survey
of a sample of non-private dwellings which are further divided into “cared accommodation” and
other non-private dwellings. Cared accommodation in turn includes hospitals, nursing homes
and aged care hostels and other facilities including hostels for people with disabilities,
children’s homes, drug rehabilitation centres and some cared components of retirement villages.
Three issues arise from the exclusion of all those in non-private dwellings:
1. Neither the non-private dwellings category nor the cared accommodation
care sub-category correspond to the restriction of the HACC target
population to those living in the community, but rather include a mix of
people who are eligible and who are not eligible. Those who are in hospital
at the time of the survey and who have lasting activity restrictions will be
eligible for HACC services on return to the community. Residents of some
of the “other” forms of cared accommodation, and “other non-private
dwellings”, notably residents in private supported residential services (SRS)
and serviced apartments in retirement villages, may also be eligible for
HACC. A closer alignment is required between facilities that are funded
through the aged and disability residential care programs and the ABS
definitions for the population living in the community and in various forms
of supported accommodation. Until this alignment is achieved, more
accurate calculations of the RREF base population living in the community
can be obtained by first estimating total handicapped populations for LGAs
then deducting the actual numbers of people living in funded residential
care facilities.
2. All but 3,100 of the total 138,900 people in aged residential care facilities
and “other” cared accommodation had moderate or profound levels of
handicap; this level of handicap reflects the requirements for assessment
prior to admission to these facilities, and most of those with low levels of
handicap are spouses of more dependent people in aged care facilities. All
of this population can effectively be taken as belonging to the moderately,
severely and profoundly handicapped population and so is appropriately
subtracted from the total LGA handicapped populations to give the balance
living in the community. Data on residents in these facilities by age and
LGA can now be obtained.
3. Whereas the current RREF makes a “one-off” adjustment on a statewide
basis and only at the time of the DACS survey, data on actual residential
care populations can be obtained on an annual basis, and deducted in annual
calculations of the RREF base population. The treatment of the population
in non-private dwellings in the current RREF was dictated by the lack of
alternative data at the time, but is now unnecessarily complicated and less
accurate than the use of data on actual residential care populations.
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